He said: She just kept looking at me. I said What do you want me to do? She started to cry—it was dreadful to see her like that. I said What do you think I can do? You must be aware of the implications. I said—these things torment you later but at the time I had a terror of being swept along, of not thinking clearly—I said What is your estimate of our fossil fuel reserves? What kind of science do you think people will be able to do without petroleum by-products? How much longer do you think people will be able to do the kind of science we do? Can we be sure they will be so brilliant they will be able to do what we do without petroleum by-products?

I must have been in a state of shock myself, I realised that later, but at the time it seemed desperately important to get her to make some kind of statement about fossil fuel reserves, it used to come back to me later. It would have come to the same thing in the end, but why wasn’t I kinder? I could have comforted her and instead I kept going on and on at the poor girl about petroleum by-products—it seemed desperately important that one of us should keep a clear head. She just kept crying. But what could I do? Colossus was at a stage where I couldn’t possibly go through the disruption of a divorce—and anyway the financial parameters were impossible. Academic salaries in this country being what they are I couldn’t possibly support two families—well, I’d had some offers from the States over the years, I might have swung it financially but the disruption of switching institutions, not to mention countries, there was simply nothing I could do.

She kept crying and looking at me. She said George—I said Why are you looking at me like that? Did I make the world? Am I a magician? Do you think I like this?